


The Knotfather

by TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Crimes & Criminals, Dark Comedy, Dubious Acquisition Of Currency, First Meetings, Gangsters, Getting Together, Hybrids, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Organized Crime, Sexual Content, Suspense, Unreliable Narrator, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Wolf Hybrids, mafia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:01:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27029281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard/pseuds/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard
Summary: A Thing Wong Yukhei Is Unsure Of: Whether he does or doesn't work for a mob boss.A Thing Wong Yukhei Is Sure Of: That his heat isn't gonna sate itself.Or: Sicheng makes Yukhei an offer he can't refuse.
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 197
Collections: A/B/O NCT Round 1





	The Knotfather

**Author's Note:**

> Written for prompt #013: "Lucas helps run errands around the office sometimes for extra cash. When he’s sent out to a secret location to pick up a package from someone, the pretty and mysterious stranger’s scent runs through his mind days after."

Look. If you’re talking to any of Yukhei’s more successful classmates from college, especially one of those prideful alphas who chose a STEM major (looking at you Xiaojun), Yukhei works in _business administration_ now. Thank you very much.

It’s just that he’s… not entirely sure exactly what ‘business’ it is he’s ‘administrating.’ If he’s administrating anything at all. Even though he has a desk with a nameplate (that he bought himself.)

What he _is_ sure of, however, is that his job can’t be entirely above board. He hasn’t personally witnessed anything but he just gets that sense watching his coworkers speak in whispers on the stairs outside the building. He gets that sense watching them load up cars with suspiciously bulky bags before driving off into the night. Yukhei doesn’t know the specifics of what they do (he’s never included in most of those meetings) but it can’t be all that… legal.

He’s not the smartest cookie in the crayon box but he is sharp enough to realize that the business he is employed by makes a suspicious amount of in-cash profit, if the amount he has to count up at the end of each work day tells him anything. 

If those red flags weren’t enough, he’s got a sinking suspicion that there are guns and baseball bats and gang violence (oh my!) involved when his heavily-tattooed co-workers say they are going out to ‘handle things.’ 

He just gets that _feeling_.

Maybe it’s because they all dress so bad and most of them have weird mustaches.

He doesn’t like to judge by appearances but that’s gotta be it.

Among the group of men he sees most often, there is an alpha who goes by the name Ten. He’s small, but he’s athletically built and covered from neck to waist in intricate tattoos. His ears, though they stand tall and proud and wolfish on top of his head, are deformed like he’s gotten into numerous fights. Like they’ve been bitten and clawed at. Even the grayish brown fur on his tail grows out in patches, like the skin beneath is badly damaged. Ten seems to be the secondary leader of the pack, considering how even the larger and beefier-built alphas bend their heads to him. It doesn’t help that his scent is overpowering. Heavy and masculine and thick in the air like too-strong cologne, even when he’s not trying to assert dominance. Even when there are twenty other alphas in the room.

Ten’s right hand man is a taller, considerably younger alpha named Yangyang. He’s got gleaming, blue-black fur on his ears and tail. There’s a wildness to him. A ferocity not all too far from a territorial stray dog. He’s cute. Pretty, even, with his dyed blonde curls and big eyes, but Yukhei doesn’t like looking at him for too long. Eye contact with Yangyang is like coming face to face with a knife in a back alley. A stabby-stab on standby. And his scent… Oh, his scent! Most of the time, Yangyang smells sharply tangy like citrus. But spend too long sniffing and an odd, metallic undertone takes over and Yukhei can’t think of any other way to describe it other than blood. 

Yangyang smells like he’s covered in blood.

Or maybe it’s Yukhei’s imagination.

Yeah. It’s all in his head. There’s no hard evidence that he works for (with?) criminals.

But even if he does work with gangsters, there’s some part of Yukhei that makes him think he should feel a little weirder and a _lot_ more guilty about knowingly abetting criminal activity. 

However, the late-night work hours fit his sleep schedule (thanks, college) and the pay is almost _too_ good considering Yukhei doesn’t do much more than sit at a cheap metal desk, count up stacks of cash and field phone calls for ‘the big boss.’ Oh, and apply alcohol and bandages to the wounds on his co-worker’s knuckles and faces far too often to be normal. He’s learned more first aid in the past couple weeks than he has his whole life up till now.

The first and only time Yukhei got brave and asked about their injuries, Ten just said it came with the territory of this kind of business. And when Yukhei asked about _this kind of business_ , Yangyang just said they work in ‘sales.’ They go ‘door to door.’

Whatever that implies.

Like, the evidence is piling up.

Yes. Yukhei is pretty positive that he works for a mafia boss.

Everything aligns, he thinks. He’s living in an old mobster movie. Slide over, _The Godfather_. He’s living something wilder than fiction.

It’s Friday night, around nine in the evening, and Yukhei arrives at ‘work.’ The office they work out of is on the third floor in a building where the second and first floors are dark and empty and the basement level is a karaoke bar that can’t be anything else but a front for heinous crimes. There is no elevator so he takes the back stairs up to the correct floor. 

Standing in front of the door, cigarette dangling from his lips, is one of the larger, older alphas. The fur on his ears is graying significantly around the tips but he’s so fucking stacked that there is no doubt he still wins every fight he gets into. His suit is a little ill-fitting but his shoes are polished to a shine and, even though it’s dark out and the hall isn’t all that brightly lit, he wears sunglasses. There’s a very high chance, Yukhei thinks, that the wolf’s got a gun wedged into the waistband of his slacks beneath his blazer like a stereotype. Of course, there’s no way he can prove it without risk to his own health. 

Yukhei reaches the end of the hallway. The man barely turns his head but Yukhei can still _feel_ the alpha’s heavy gaze fall on him. Yukhei has stood in this stairwell dozens of times already but it still feels like he’s standing in line for a club he’s not going to be allowed into. Which is why it still shocks him, even today, even after all this time, when the alpha smiles at him and then raps twice on the metal door. Seconds later, someone inside unlocks it and lets Yukhei in.

The ‘office’ is sparsely decorated. Just a handful of card tables and folding chairs for the pack to sit down in when they eat, Yukhei’s little desk, and the awkwardly large amount of empty, carpeted space in between them.

Most of the men are already here. They have no names, as far as Yukhei is concerned. None of them have introduced themselves to him. The only one in here he knows by name is Yangyang, who noisily bites into an apple as he watches Yukhei cross the open room and sit down at his desk. 

What kind of business is being run here where he’s the only employee with a desk? 

He’s sniffed around the place for clues a few times before. Of course he’s wanted to know more about what these guys do. Where they go. Who they know. When the others have gone out on their assignments, he sneaks through the things they leave behind, but all he’s found so far are menus for nearly every takeout place on the block and a handful of business cards from downtown offices.

He won’t ask questions, though. Well, not too many more than he already has.

The pay is too good to ask questions. He’s got his heart set on moving into a newer, bigger apartment and he needs to make the down payment by the end of the month if he doesn’t want to lose his place on the waiting list.

“Good evening,” Yangyang says from his spot against the wall by the big boss’s door, startling Yukhei out of his thoughts. Yangyang’s leather jacket and plaid punk pants stand out in a room where nearly everyone else wears tacky-colored suits and brightly-patterned silk shirts. There’s faint movement behind Yangyang. His tail swings slowly back and forth, brushing against the wall he’s leaning on. Like he’s happy to see Yukhei or something equally crazy.

Yukhei gives him a strained smile and a nod. “Hey.” At least Yangyang smells like citrus fruit tonight. Yukhei isn’t sure he can handle the stench of blood hanging beneath the smell of that apple.

When Yangyang offers no other conversation but continues to stare, Yukhei turns his computer on and angles the screen so that the machinery blocks Yangyang from his view. So that all he can really see is the smeared reflection of his own stark white hair and upright ears. As he waits for the old computer to crackle to life and boot up, he becomes aware of everyone else in the room turning to stare at him, their conversations dying down.

He really feels it in moments like these. As if he needs any other reminder that he’s the only omega in the room.

It’s the big boss’s order that keeps them all from ganging up on him, he knows, and it must be nothing short of miraculous that one man’s word keeps a pack of alphas on their best behavior. Because it can’t be his scent that keeps them at bay. All through high school and even into college, Yukhei was ignored by alphas or turned down by potential dates or even made fun of for being ‘scentless.’ Renjun, his fellow omega and roommate, always tells Yukhei that he smells like the inside of a brand new book. And since a lot of alphas don’t know what the inside of a book smells like, of course they can’t appreciate the delicacy of Yukhei’s unimposing scent. “Besides,” Renjun always says, “anything’s better than smelling like me.”

It’s why they’re both single. Still.

Yukhei spends ten minutes adding the last of yesterday’s numbers to the ledger and he’s about to start on tonight’s work when there’s a noise from inside the big boss’s office. A sharp voice muffled to near-nothing by the thickness of the door.

“Yeah, he’s here,” Yangyang says in response, his ears flicking forward.

There is no other verbal indication but Yukhei can tell that it’s him that’s being talked about.

Then the door to the big boss’s office swings open and Ten struts out. His black hair is pushed back and away from his forehead. His eyeshadow is heavy and sparkles with glitter beneath the fluorescent lights. He wears a blazer draped over his shoulders, his arms not even properly through the sleeves. No shirt but he wears a pair of skin-tight leather pants. New. Black. Shiny. In stark contrast to the mangled, gray-brown of his tail fur. His tattooed torso is almost always on full display these days. Yukhei won’t be surprised if Ten starts walking around the place naked.

“Big Boss wants to see you,” Ten says, tapping his painted fingernails on the corner of Yukhei’s desk. Then, before Yukhei can truly process the order he’s been given, Ten turns away to face the alphas across the room. “Downstairs, boys,” he shouts. Their wolf ears perk up in response. “Half of you on patrol. Divvy yourselves up between north and south. Don’t fuck off to the bar like last time. I need the big guys downtown with me. At least six of you. Bring your gear.”

“What are you up to,” Yukhei asks as the men obediently stand and prepare themselves. “Where are you guys going?”

“Out. To handle business,” replies Ten. “You hungry? I’ll bring back Thai.” Then he follows the men out of the door casual and slow, like he’s not about to literally be gay and do crimes.

Not wanting to leave the big boss waiting long, Yukhei scribbles down the last of the math he was working on in his head and then stands up from his desk.

Yangyang is still propped up beside the boss’s open door. He still bites noisily into the last little bit of his apple. He still stares at Yukhei with those big black animalistic eyes that practically scream _I do murder_. 

Yukhei keeps his head held high as he walks past him and he’s barely taken two steps into the office when the door shuts tight behind him. A slam that nearly scares him out of his skin.

Apprehension bubbles and boils in Yukhei’s veins. He very rarely gets directly called inside the big boss’s office. It’s usually only Ten that tells Yukhei what to do unless it’s a shout through the open door to ‘hold all of my calls’ or to ‘send someone up from downstairs.’

For several long seconds, Yukhei stands in the middle of the office and watches the big boss watch him.

“You’re a good kid, Yukhei,” says Kun, the big boss. His fur is just as black as his coiffed hair and Yukhei can really only see the subtle shift of the man’s ears because of how oddly pink their shell is. Kun’s office is clean and dimly-lit. His suit is luxurious and cream-colored and his right wrist is iced out with an expensive gold watch. Kun sits at his massive, wooden desk, reared back in his leather office chair. He’s got a cigar clenched between his teeth and it bobs and weaves with every syllable out of his mouth. “We don’t get a lot of good kids like you in this field of work.”

Yukhei isn’t sure if he should take that as a compliment or not but he says, “Thanks,” anyway.

Kun makes a noise in the back of his throat. Low. Gravelly. Not quite a growl. More like a pleased, content rattle of his chest.

Before Yukhei can stop it, he grins so wide it hurts his cheeks. The reaction’s instinctive. Primal, almost.

Kun lets out one huff of a laugh, like he didn’t think it would be that easy.

Beneath the stench of his cigar, Yukhei gets a whiff of the alpha’s scent. It’s strong and bubbly and woodsy, like a lowball glass of dark liquor.

Kun asks, “How long have you been working for me?”

Yukhei racks his brain. Tries to count up the days. The weeks. It’s easy to do when he recalls the number of times he’s had to go to the bank lately. Apparently, the only ‘direct deposit’ these people know is directly depositing thick rolls of cash into their employee’s hands. “Not even two months, boss,” Yukhei says. And it kind of surprises him because he can’t believe he’s survived this long without a gunshot wound or something.

Kun nods slowly. He pulls the cigar from his mouth and exhales thick, white smoke into the air of his office. The glow of the street lamp right outside the window gets broken up by the blinds and casts horizontal bars of orange light across Kun’s small, round face. “You’re more loyal than some of these guys who’ve worked for me for two years.”

It feels like unfairly earned praise, especially for someone who has yet to even be officially claimed by the pack, but Yukhei isn’t about to ruin the good thing he’s got going. “Thank you, boss.”

“And because you’re so obedient…” Kun pauses for several seconds as he takes another puff off of his cigar and exhales the smoke into the air. “I’m going to give you a special assignment.”

Yukhei stands up straight. “Me? Sir, I don’t think I’d be any good.” 

Kun dumps the ash of his cigar into the tray on his desk. “Let me rephrase. You will do this.”

The brand new hardness in the big boss’s tone makes Yukhei gulp. For the past few weeks, he’s done nothing but sit at his desk and add up ludicrous cash amounts before scribbling the totals into a notebook. In other words, just simple, guilt-free, non-violent activities.

Kun adds, “You’re the perfect man for the job.”

And that makes a shiver run up Yukhei’s spine. He asks, “What do I have to do?”

Kun gives him a warning look. As if Yukhei shouldn’t be asking any other questions except ‘how high?’ Then he sighs and says, “You need to meet up with an associate of mine. Don’t let him boss you around. Just pick up some supplies.”

“Supplies?” Yukhei asks.

Kun takes his sweet time exhaling smoke from his lungs before he says, “computer parts.”

Definitely not computer parts.

“You’ll be compensated fairly for the task, of course.” Kun opens up one of the drawers in his desk, pulls out a roll of bills and chucks it in Yukhei’s direction.

Yukhei barely manages to catch it, he’s so unprepared. And the roll is thicker than he expects, even when it’s snatched tight by a rubber band.

“Bus fare,” Kun explains.

It’s about 1,000 times too much to be bus fare. But Yukhei wants that new apartment. Fuck morality. Capitalism still rules the world. He stashes the cash in his pants pocket like the bills will walk away from him if he takes too long.

“You’ll get more for a job well done,” adds Kun.

_More?_ More than this?

Yukhei isn’t sure he’s ready to handle the same kind of tasks the mean-looking alphas handle. He’s not sure he’s strong enough to administrate _that_ kind of business.

Okay. New plan. He is no longer in business administration. He is a big-shot CEO’s secretary. Yeah. That works. That still sounds impressive compared to doctors and scientists and lawmakers, right Xiaojun?

Kun thinks Yukhei’s prepared for this job, however. He sits forward in his chair, picks a fountain pen from off of his desk and then, in beautifully tight handwriting, scribbles out what appears to be an address. “Go here. Get the goods. Come back,” Kun tells him. “Easy as that.”

It’s not going to be easy.

The goods can be _anything_ , Yukhei realizes. Weed. Hard drugs. Guns. Explosives. Raw diamonds. Top-secret government documents. A body. Any combination of illegal contraband that he’ll get thrown behind bars if he gets caught with. But based on the look Kun gives him, Yukhei isn’t sure he’s got much of a choice if he wants to walk out of this office with all of his body parts intact. Yangyang still stands outside the door, after all. “Sure thing, boss,” Yukhei says, his voice steady despite his pounding heart. He steps forward, leans over the front of Kun’s desk and accepts the almost comically neon pink Post-It note from off the tip of Kun’s finger.

“I need those supplies back here before the night’s over,” Kun tells him. His wolf ears twist forward, prepared to catch the sound of Yukhei’s response. “This should go without saying but don’t look inside. I’ll be able to tell if you do. My associate likes to give newbies a hard time for fun. However, if anything happens to slow down the process…” Another long pause as he sucks on his cigar. “I’m sure you know multiple ways to speed things up.”

Threats of physical violence? Blackmail? Asking nicely? “Anything for you, boss,” Yukhei says.

“That’s what I like to hear.” Kun dismisses him from the office with little more than a flick of his finger and Yukhei quickly turns to leave.

Yangyang must be listening in because he swings open the door as Yukhei approaches. When he slams the door shut behind Yukhei, he asks, “Want me to go with you?”

The initial spike of fear in Yukhei’s system is because he does not want to spend more time with Yangyang than he needs to. Then that spike is joined by another, different fear. “Am I about to do something where you’d _need_ to come with me?”

A smirk slides across Yangyang’s face.

That can’t be a good sign.

“I’m just bored and feel cooped up,” says Yangyang, cool and casual and slow.

Yukhei stares down at the Post-It note. He’s at least familiar enough with neighborhood names and block numbers to know the general direction he needs to go. It’s a half hour walk. An eight minute subway ride. “I can go by myself,” he says.

Yangyang’s so much shorter than him, so much smaller, thinner, but Yukhei still half-cowers beneath the alpha’s unblinking gaze. “Okay then. Suit yourself,” Yangyang says after a long silence. He relaxes back against the wall next to Kun’s door and pulls his phone out of his pocket like that’s really all there is to it.

Still, Yukhei waits for a few seconds, half-expecting Yangyang to give him an order or tell him more about this assignment or even invite himself along, but Yangyang just mindlessly scrolls Instagram, rapidly liking thirst trap photos of omega baddies as he goes.

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Yukhei turns and leaves the office.

He can only hope that he doesn’t actually need a strong set of teeth and claws where he’s going.

⤰

And where he’s going is a neighborhood on the far side of downtown. To an apartment building where half of the windows are probably within arm’s reach of a concrete bridge that carries the trains over the road. The building is surrounded by a chain-link fence. There’s a poor excuse for a garden out front. The flowers are overgrown and the fountain is clogged with debris. The water reeks. A trio of cats cuts through the unkempt grass in front of Yukhei’s shoes and he clenches every muscle in his body as they yowl at him and take off down the cracked path.

Despite the heat of the mid-summer night, an alpha with big gray ears lurks in the darkness between two street lamps wearing a khaki trench coat that clearly has something untowards beneath it. He whistles to Yukhei who spins to look at him. Yukhei is the scared one, literally shaking in his shoes, but there must be something about his build or his height or his clenched fists that makes the creeping alpha reconsider their decision and back away from him. 

Yukhei pushes on. 

Closer to the building, he hears loud music being played through an open window a few stories up but the sound hardly pierces through the noise of traffic from the busy road on the other side of the fence. At the front of the building, a rickety sliding glass door takes nearly five seconds to squeal open all of the way. The door to the lobby takes even longer. No locks or key cards? No doorman? No system that requires you to be buzzed through? Oh well. Yukhei crosses the off-white tile floor to the elevator and it feels like it’s about to slip off the ropes and go crashing to the ground as it shakes and takes him ten floors up.

Yukhei double-checks the Post-It note to make sure he’s got the right apartment number before he knocks. When he waits and gets no response, he knocks again. Harder. Louder. Until he feels the door rattle beneath his fist.

“Who is it,” a voice shouts from the other side of the thin wood.

Yukhei’s so on edge that he can’t think of anything else to say but his own name.

“Yukhei,” the voice repeats. Almost a mispronunciation. “Who is that? What do you want?” They sound defensive. Ready to fight.

Then Yukhei realizes his mistake: he’s a stranger banging on someone’s door in the wee hours of the night. He leans closer to the door. “I was told you’re expecting me.”

Silence. Full of doubt. Yukhei spots the movement of a shadow beneath the door.

Not wanting to fuck this up, Yukhei presses on. “Kun sent me to pick up a-”

Suddenly, there’s the noise of a lock being flipped. A chain being slid back. The knob rattles before the door swings open. Yukhei can’t even squeak out a greeting before a hand reaches out from the other side of the door, clamps tight around Yukhei’s wrist and yanks him inside. The owner of the voice steps out into the hall, looks one way and then the other, then closes the door and locks everything back up. The man hisses, “You can’t just _say_ that name around here.”

“Why not,” Yukhei squeaks out. 

The man turns around and looks at him. His glasses catch just enough of a glare that Yukhei can’t properly see his eyes. “Why not?” He parrots, dropping his voice an octave to mock Yukhei’s tone. He says, “That name will get you torn to shreds out here. It’s Doyoung’s territory on this side of the railroad tracks. Kun’s name will put a target on your back.”

Yukhei gulps. He suddenly wishes he had Yangyang with him after all. 

It takes a moment, but… “You’re new,” the man figures out.

“I… I just started,” Yukhei says. He’s not entirely sure how accurate that is when he’s been at this for nearly two months. “Kun says I’m perfect for the job.”

“Sounds like him.” The man pushes his glasses up his nose then sniffs the air. He steps forward. Sniffs the air again. “You a beta? No. Can’t be with ears like that.”

“Omega,” Yukhei corrects. Being asked in such a straightforward manner is a touch uncomfortable.

“Kun’s got an omega in his ranks? Is he finally settling down and making a proper pack?” 

“I’m not _with_ Kun,” Yukhei huffs out. His posture goes rigid as the tension thickens.

“Yeah. That makes sense. If you were his, he wouldn’t let you leave his territory all willy-nilly.”

Right, right, Yukhei reminds himself. He’s on Doyoung’s turf now. Whatever that entails. 

The man sniffs the air a third time then furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “You on scent blockers or something?”

Yukhei responds, “Never taken them in my life.” Renjun’s even talked Yukhei out of popping heat suppressants.

“I can’t catch a whiff of you. You know I’m… Isn’t it dangerous for you to… Are you sure you’re not—” The man finally seems to notice Yukhei’s twisted-up expression. “Wait. This too personal?”

“It’s like a stranger off the street asking you what the exact circumference of your knot is.”

“Goddamn,” the guy huffs. “Sorry.” 

And now that Yukhei’s eyes have adjusted to the dimly-lit apartment, he can finally get his first good look at the guy. He’s tall—nearly Yukhei’s height—and is dressed in nothing but his boxers, as if Yukhei’s caught him right before he’s off to bed. He’s got a body worth showing off, though, with broad shoulders but a narrow waist, thick thighs but slim calves. A brilliant trail of hair from his navel to the waistband of his boxers and beyond. Gosh. Those boxers hide absolutely nothing. The alpha’s sporting an obvious half-chub that Yukhei pretends not to notice. The guy’s tanned skin is dotted in fading bruises and old scars. Some of his wounds are fresher and the purplish injuries are half-hidden beneath bandages and gauze. The fur on his tail and ears is in fine shape, though. Healthy and thick and coppery-red like autumn leaves. Yukhei realizes his eyes are wandering and he drags his gaze back up the man’s torso to his face. They make eye contact. The man’s eyes narrow as he visibly reconsiders Yukhei. There is a question he desperately wants to ask. Yukhei can practically see it. But the man must not want to make things more awkward than they already are. 

Instead, the man says, “Why are you here? Something happen to the other guys?”

Yukhei responds, “I don’t know. Do things _usually_ happen to the other guys?” It’s part joke and part a desperate desire to find out even a smidgen of info about his employers.

The guy doesn’t take the bait. He doesn’t even snort back a laugh. He just reaches both arms above his head and bites back a groan as the stretch hits. 

Yukhei just stands still. Watches. He feels half-paralyzed by the alpha pheromones rolling off of the guy in waves. It’s not so much that he’s trying to put Yukhei in his place and more along the lines of him being almost entirely naked and standing within arm’s reach. It’s the proximity. There’s no layers of clothing to help mitigate his scent. And now that Yukhei really stands there and breathes it in, he realizes he’s been basking in the man’s scent since the guy let him in the door. The alpha’s scent is light. Unusual. Subtle. Something sweet and heady and floral, like cherry blossom petals. It’s such a stark difference from Yangyang’s biting scent. From Ten’s overwhelming woodsiness. From Kun’s deep, dark, drowning tones.

The stranger lowers his arms. “Well, don’t just stand there,” he says. “Help me lift this goddamn thing.” He steps around Yukhei to head further into the apartment and the omega follows obediently.

It’s a… Shall we say the apartment is quaint? _Cozy_? Very minimalist. Very artsy with its lack of clutter or any noticeable personal knickknacks. And the furniture and entire sections of the floor and walls are covered in suspicious layers of tarp and clear plastic.

That’s not anxiety-inducing at all. 

Let’s not stare too hard at any of those knives on the coffee table. They look a little dirty. And that pool of dried liquid on the floor is quite off-putting.

Yeah. A bit too avant-garde for Yukhei’s tastes. His design style is a bit more country farmhouse.

Yukhei hurries to catch up to the alpha as he walks through the living room, through the dining room. Then he realizes he’s staring at the back of the man’s neck and that, with his eyes, he’s following the groove of the man’s spine down to his waist to watch the switch of his hips as he walks. The gentle metronome of his red tail as it swings with each step. Yukhei blinks. Looks away. He says, “I’m sorry. Who are you?” He probably should have asked that first.

The man is halfway in the kitchen but he stops and turns to face Yukhei. The light above his head casts delicious shadows beneath his pecs and abs. “I’m Sicheng. Kun and I have been associates since he started his… business.”

And Yukhei wants to ask what that business is but instead, he inquires, a bit boldly, “What’s your profession?”

“I’m a doctor,” Sicheng states after only a second of hesitation. “Surgeon.”

“Bullshit,” Yukhei says.

Sicheng laughs it off. “Well… I am… a medical professional. Of sorts.”

Of sorts. 

Then another little tidbit of information clicks in Yukhei’s head. “But if you work for Kun…” Yukhei lowers his voice and looks around like someone may be in the next room trying to listen in on them. “Why do you live in Doyoung’s territory?”

“Kun didn’t tell you?”

“They exclude me from the meetings.” Or, rather, Yangyang is in those meetings and he doesn’t want to be in there with Yangyang.

“Well, with Doyoung around, it’s harder for Kun to make moves. Even downtown. That’s why I’m here.” He waves a hand around the crummy apartment. “I mean, that’s literally why I’m here. To gather info. Report it back. Keep Kun one step ahead. All you really need to know about me is that I’m Kun’s man on the inside.” 

Yukhei doesn’t follow any of that. Not because he’s dumb but because he’s only giving the man a small lick of his attention as he remembers all of the spy movies he loved so much growing up. He breathes in too deeply and his lungs flood with Sicheng’s scent. It all goes straight to his brain. Like he’s taken a hit of weed. He blinks rapidly as his vision goes a little hazy. As his body warms. “What exactly do you have to do for Kun? Or… uh… Doyoung?” But he’s not even all that interested in the actual answer. He just wants to hear the man talk. Feel his voice in the air between them. Sicheng’s scent has triggered some inexplicable curiosity in him. A burning thing he must satisfy. Yukhei reaches out a hand. “Wow, you’re… You’re pretty banged up. Do you get into a lot of fights?” He’s still not seeking answers. He just wants an excuse to get closer. “This cut looks really new. Have you… Do you need someone to lick those wounds?” His fingers graze one of Sicheng’s longer, older scars across his rib cage. The tissue is stark white against his bronze skin. It looks like he got it from a knife. A slash, not a stab. Sicheng’s body is almost excessively hot beneath Yukhei’s palm. Like he’s feverish. Yukhei drags his hand down and revels in the friction. Sicheng’s scent none-too-subtly floods Yukhei’s nose all over again. A second, heavier wave that makes Yukhei feel like he’s standing outside beneath a blazing hot sun. Makes him dream of walking beneath a row of blossoming sakura trees. Heat stirs in his gut. Then, too late, Yukhei realizes how low on the man’s abdomen he’s now touching—fingers toying with the waistband of Sicheng’s boxers—and he pulls his hand back. “Sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

But Sicheng reaches out. Grabs Yukhei’s wrist as if to keep him from pulling away. “You’re more than fine.” They meet eyes. There’s a spark there, between them. Dangerous. Illicit. “Your hair is very nice,” Sicheng says in a low, rumbling voice. “White like moonlight.”

“It’s a birth defect,” Yukhei says.

“It makes you beautiful.” Sicheng’s hand starts to slide up Yukhei’s arm. Across the skin of his elbow.

It’s a steamy moment like something out of the BL webtoons Yukhei skims through when the evenings are slow.

Then… 

“Wait. I _do_ smell you. It’s—” Sicheng steps forward.

Yukhei gets his hopes up. Alphas usually can’t sniff him out when they first meet him. They write him off. They turn away. Alphas don’t want someone scentless. They want omegas they can bury their noses in.

Sicheng leans close to him—too close—and sucks in so deep a breath through his nose that Yukhei feels the air move across the curve of his neck. Then Sicheng recoils. “Damn. You smell like… Christ, that can only be Yangyang.” 

Oh.

Yukhei’s heart sinks. 

Sicheng pulls himself away from Yukhei. The fur on his tail stands on end like he’s just been threatened. His ears are flattened to the top of his head. He backs away like Yangyang is lurking in the shadows. “Haven’t seen the kid in a few months. He doing alright?” He means to be light and conversational but his voice trembles.

“He’s fine,” Yukhei states. “I guess.” It worries him a little that he got close enough to Yangyang tonight for the younger man’s scent to transfer. He thought he’d done a good job of avoiding direct physical contact. Does Yukhei smell like blood? 

No wonder Yangyang’s not a hit at parties. A smell like that just carries.

Sicheng’s expression changes. He narrows his eyes. Irritation takes over. “You’ve been here too long already. Enough questions. Just take— Just take the package and go.” He spins around and leaves in quite the rush.

Yukhei follows him into the galley-style kitchen around the corner. It smells like freshly cooked food in here. Boiled potatoes, stewed vegetables, baked chicken. It all sits in bowls and pots on the counter. Too much for just one person, Yukhei believes. Maybe the real company Sicheng is expecting comes even later tonight. Yukhei doesn’t know why such a thought saddens him. The air in front of the stove is still hot as if it hasn’t been too long since the oven was shut off. Yukhei’s eyes dart to the far end of the kitchen only for him to hurriedly look away as Sicheng bends over and his criminally thin boxers cling to his round ass.

Sicheng hoists up a large cooler by the handles and then turns around and shoves it into Yukhei’s arms. “Just took ‘em out the freezer. Faster it gets to the big boss, the better. These things can’t thaw or they go useless.”

“Right,” Yukhei grunts. “Time’s of the essence.” And it’s a little shocking because he half expected all of this to take up most of the night. How can it be over so quickly? How can something criminal be so easy? It’s almost like Sicheng’s kicking him out.

“Don’t hold it by the sides. Grab the handles. That’s what they’re there for.”

“Okay. Right. Gotcha.” Even when Yukhei is holding it by the handles, the cooler is cumbersome. He’s strong but the thing’s just wide enough to be uncomfortable to carry. Yukhei can hear something inside shift about as he makes his way towards the apartment’s door, following Sicheng. There could be anything inside, he realizes. Harvested organs frozen over ice. Human body parts from a murder. Hazardous chemicals or something. _Computer parts_. “What’s in here,” he asks.

Sicheng opens the front door for him, puts a hand on his back and steers him over the threshold. “Diet soda.”

Definitely not diet soda. Definitely not regular soda either.

“Don’t drop that,” Sicheng commands. “Or you won’t see the sun rise.”

Before Yukhei can ask anything else, Sicheng slams the apartment door shut in his face.

⤰

Yukhei gets back to the office without issue, though it takes every bubbling ounce of his self-control to avoid popping open the lid of the cooler and taking a peek inside.

The same alpha with the shades and the Schröedinger’s gun uses a key to let him in the door but does not offer a hand of assistance with the cooler.

Ok. Cool. Sure. Yeah. Whatever.

Even Yangyang watches Yukhei struggle from one end of the room to the other without getting off of the wall to help. What he does do, though, is knock on the door to Kun’s office and shout, “He’s back.”

And Yukhei is close enough to the door to hear Kun’s response, even from the other side of the wood: “Already?” Then Kun says, in less of a shriek, “Let him in.”

Yangyang opens the door and Yukhei stumbles inside. His back hurts. His arms shake from the strain. It’ll be just his luck that he doesn’t drop the heavy sonofabitch until right at the end when it matters most.

Kun doesn’t even remove his shoes from where he’s got them propped on the edge of his desk. He just watches Yukhei struggle. His black-furred ears swivel to pick up every sound. His slim fingers pop open, spin and snap close his fancy lighter. 

Fortunately, Yukhei has strength left in him yet! He makes it across the office and sets the heavy cooler down on the floor next to Kun’s big desk. The movement causes the contents to shift and slosh about. Noticeably liquid-y. Possibly blood-y and harvested organ-y.

Grunting with effort, Yukhei steps back. “Sorry it took so long, boss.” It’s only been an hour.

Kun just asks, “Sicheng didn’t give you any trouble, did he?”

Yukhei thinks about it. “Was he supposed to?”

Kun’s stoic expression almost melts into a visible emotion. Surprise, nearly. As if Sicheng absolutely _was_ supposed to give Yukhei hell. Kun only hums. His mood is indecipherable now that he’s flattened his face back out.

Yukhei presses on. “He said there were others. Before me. What happened to them?”

“Every job has some turnaround,” the big boss states. Like it’s something everyone should be aware of.

“Turnaround,” Yukhei repeats. Ahh yes. They got killed on the job, his brain supplies. Got caught in the middle of a turf war. Or tried to leave the life but the life followed them out. Maybe they were traitors and lost limbs. Maybe they got locked up in prison. Or something.

Kun’s voice cuts into Yukhei’s thoughts. “But you’ll stick around, won’t you, Yukhei?” He sits his lighter on his desk and twists a bit in the chair to look at Yukhei straight on. “You’ll keep working for me?”

“As long as you’ll have me, boss,” Yukhei admits. Because money _does_ buy happiness. And money also rents big, fancy roommate-less apartments with floor-to-ceiling windows and a stellar view. Plus there’s no telling if he’s even got a choice at this point. Will Kun even let him go if he asks?

Kun glances down at the cooler. Then he looks back up at Yukhei. “I can tell by how calm you are that you didn’t look inside. You’re a good kid, Yukhei. You follow instructions. Just like I expected.” Then he does something really strange. He smiles. “Keep up the good work and you’ll earn your spot in this pack.” He opens one of his desk drawers, digs around until he finds another roll of cash to casually chuck through the air at Yukhei’s chest.

Yukhei catches it one-handed and can tell just by the thickness of the roll and the denomination of the bills that this is way more than he should ever earn for a simple fetch quest. _This is where the guilt is supposed to go_ , a quiet part of his brain suggests. It’s a voice that’s easy to ignore. That apartment building is loaded with amenities! “Thank you, boss.” He shoves the cash in his pocket, right alongside the other roll of bills.

“Did you want to know what’s inside,” Kun asks, jerking his head in the direction of the cooler.

“Oh, definitely not, boss,” Yukhei says quickly, despite how hot his curiosity blazes.

Kun chuckles. “Good answer.” Then he dismisses Yukhei with a wiggle of his fingers.

Yukhei bows respectfully and flees from Kun’s office. Only Yangyang’s slowness with the door keeps him from taking off in a dead sprint.

⤰

Yukhei barely remembers how he started working for Kun.

His memories get kind of fuzzy after a few weeks of living in a constant state of mild, survivalist fear.

Did he apply on a job hunting website? Did he snatch a number off a help wanted poster? Did Renjun set him up with a friend of a friend of a friend? He’s used all three of those methods since graduation and he’s not even sure if this is job eight or eighteen since leaving school.

All that matters now, he guesses, is that he’s still on Kun’s good side. All that matters is that he’s one step closer to having a pack. And that’s something he never thought he’d get to say, even if joining a pack of potential Triad members is… say, not on his top ten list of things he wants to do.

Yukhei only lets himself think about what’s in that cooler for a short little while. Five minutes max. It’s just some cpop albums, he convinces himself. Kun’s just a really big but super secretive fan of a boyband and orders their albums in bulk to increase his chances of getting into fansigns. Yeah. That’s definitely it! With his fear abated, Yukhei gets back to work.

A few minutes later, Kun calls Yangyang into his office to do something, and Yukhei hears them move heavy things around (they are clearly practicing that boyband’s choreography so that they can upload the footage to YouTube) and then it all goes quiet. Yangyang comes back out and meets Yukhei’s gaze so suddenly that the omega ducks his head and spins away.

The cpop stan shenanigans don’t last long. Yukhei switches things up and imagines Kun’s got a secret room behind that big bookcase of his and there’s definitely a torture chamber in there or something. But then he shakes such preposterous thoughts from his head and focuses on his work, scribbling line after line of numbers and calculations into Kun’s ledger and seriously questioning how so many people and businesses in the area owe Kun _so much_ money. Aren’t these interest rates exceptionally high? And these ‘collection dates’ sound ominous. He’s not entirely sure what these numbers in the ‘collateral’ column mean.

What if he’s, like, helping Kun and his alphas extort people? 

Why didn’t he pay attention to this sooner?

No. He’s letting his imagination get away from him. He’s met his fun quota for the evening. He doesn’t really, truly, actually, genuinely, literally work for a mob boss.

Does he?

_Does_ he!?

He has little time to fret.

Renjun sends Yukhei a text message shortly after midnight asking that he do a drugstore run. The one half a block from their apartment, Renjun types. Bring back flavored water packets, electrolyte pills, ibuprofen and extra-strong toilet paper.

Yukhei asks him why. Then reminds Renjun that he’s not even on that side of town and won’t be home until 6AM.

Renjun sends several strings of keyboard smashes before saying he’s stuck in bed with cramps. His heat’s due this week like it’s a bill that needs paying. “You’re gonna want your fave snacks,” Renjun messages. “Let’s be better prepared than last time.”

Yukhei asks him why again. What do his own snacks have to do with Renjun’s heat?

Another string of surprised keyboard smashes before Renjun informs him that they have been roommates long enough for their heat to sync up. Doesn’t he remember from the last three or four times? 

“Oh yeah,” Yukhei yells aloud. “Holy shit. I keep forgetting.” Then he realizes that Renjun can’t hear him from halfway across town. He types out the exact same response before letting Renjun know that he kinda always forgets that heats are a thing.

“You’d forget your head if I didn’t double check it was still attached to your neck,” Renjun messages him. Then he adds four more things to his grocery request lists and Yukhei agrees to it all. “I’ll pay you back,” Renjun makes sure he knows.

Yukhei puts his phone away and refocuses on his work.

Or tries to. He should always know they are coming but his heats still manage to sneak up on him. Then again, it hasn’t been but a year and a half since Renjun’s talked him into going natural—into coming off the heat suppressants—so Yukhei’s not even used to the goddamn things in the first place. Let alone has their schedule memorized!

The hours tick by and Yukhei has to spend them beneath Yangyang’s cold stare.

It wouldn’t be so bad if Yangyang initiated conversation. But, no, he just stares and stares and stares, with his arms folded across his chest, tail swaying slowly.

Several times, Yukhei wants to ask Yangyang what’s up. Several times, he decides that he quite likes living, so he says nothing at all. 

Eventually, though, Yangyang huffs, “He usually doesn’t make things easy for newbies.”

There’s absolutely no context but Yukhei still figures that Yangyang is talking about Sicheng. And it’s odd that both Kun and Yangyang have had such reactions. As if Sicheng is supposed to be some terrifying monster. Yukhei stays quiet.

Yangyang continues, “He’s a tough, prickly guy. Keeps his walls up. He’s not one to back off. It’s why Kun stationed him deep in enemy territory to begin with. He’ll commit to the cause.”

Yukhei can’t respond. He doesn’t know Sicheng. Or how things usually go when these little packages or whatever need to be picked up.

Yangyang asks, “Did you do something to him? Did you knock him over the head?”

“No.”

“Come on. You did _something_ to make him heel.”

“We just talked.”

“That’s it?”

Yukhei almost looks up at him. Almost. But he keeps his eyes on the computer screen and speeds up his typing in hopes that the noise of the clacking keys will drown out Yangyang’s nagging.

It doesn’t.

“Is it because he likes you,” Yangyang guesses. He grins wide, teeth gleaming, like the idea genuinely pleases him. “Did he choose to be a doll because he thinks you’re pretty?”

“No.” The answer hops out of Yukhei’s mouth before he can even think it through. Before he can decide if he’s saying something dangerous or not. 

“Then why’d he give you an easy time? Why’d he back off?”

Yukhei replies, “It’s because he said I smell like you.”

⤰

Ten and the other alphas come back to the office around two in the morning. Maybe closer to three. Regardless, it’s right around when Yukhei’s starting to get hungry and tired and in need of a break.

Ten shouts, “Lucy, I’m home,” like Ricky Ricardo as he struts into the office. He drapes his blazer over the back of a folding chair and is now entirely shirtless. “Hand me the goods,” he shouts at someone behind him. “Or get got.”

The other alphas file into the office, adding commotion and movement when there was only quiet and stillness up until now. Adding a flood of dark, cloying scents when there had only been a faint hint of Yangyang’s sour-sweetness. Their clothes are a little dirty, a little torn, a little damp. Their hair is disheveled and fresh bruises blacken their cheeks. Blood stains their tails. Bite marks dig into their ears. Cuts dot their knuckles. One of them’s got a busted lip that’s still swollen. Another’s got a nose that still leaks blood. You don’t get injuries like that being door to door salesmen, Yukhei concludes. Unless they sell boxing gloves and test the damn things on each other in the living rooms of random strangers. The alphas are in good spirits, though, and smell like alcohol as if they stopped at the karaoke bar downstairs before coming up.

Yukhei knows better than to ask questions about where they’ve been and what they’ve done so he continues to sit at his desk and finishes up his work as Ten lugs around a huge crate and distributes white Styrofoam take-out plates to the men as they sit and groan and laugh and chat.

When Ten sits two of the takeout plates down on Yukhei’s office desk, he points to one and says, “This one’s yours,” and then points to the other and says, “This is Yangyang’s. Don’t believe me? They are marked. You two are our only picky bitches. Gotta be so _special_. You’re lucky I love you.” 

“Thanks. I guess. Really.” Yukhei drops his pen and starts to reach for his plate.

Ten leans over the desk, fast as a punch. “You saw the doctor today.” He puts his nose to Yukhei’s nose and says, “Yet there’s not a shred of fear in your eyes,” but he grins like that’s the best news ever. “You don’t even have the scent of fear on you.”

Yukhei tilts his head back so that he can continue reaching for his plate without getting too much closer to Ten’s face. He succeeds. He slides the plate across his desk, shifting aside papers and notebooks and rolls of old-fashioned calculator tape as he goes.

Ten continues to stare at him. “Fascinating,” he states. Nearly out of context. “Amazing, even.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” says Yukhei. He pops open his takeout plate and goes straight for the eggroll, lifting it to his mouth and biting in. Shit. It’s still hot on the inside. Yukhei winces.

Ten watches him the entire time, as if attempting to stare through Yukhei—as if trying to find the tiniest crack in Yukhei’s facade—but Yukhei must pass Ten’s test. Ten says, “Kun was right about you. You are perfect for us.”

And that can mean _anything_.

“Sicheng is Kun’s… Uhh. Sicheng gathers up the best… _raw materials_ for Kun,” Ten states. “He kicks up a fuss every time Kun sends a new errand boy. He doesn’t trust people easily. Thinks everyone new will try to sell him out to Doyoung or fucking make off with the best of his… you know… product.”

“And what product is that,” Yukhei asks with his mouth full.

“Designer handbags.”

Definitely not designer handbags.

Dammit. At this point, does Yukhei even _want_ to find out what’s in that fucking cooler?

“Sicheng let you take the product without putting the fear of God in you,” Ten concludes.

Yangyang adds, “Or sending you on a wild goose chase around Doyoung’s territory to wear you down first.”

“Why is that,” Ten needs to know. He leans a little farther across the desk and watches Yukhei chew. “How could you go straight there and come straight back?”

“Is it really all that strange,” Yukhei asks. “He’s not all that bad of a guy.” He shoves more eggroll in his mouth. It’s deliciously crispy on the outside and wonderfully soft on the inside. It still burns his tongue but he chews and swallows regardless. The flavor is strong, fresh. The seasoning is perfect. “He just handed me the cooler and then walked me out.”

Ten says, “Yes, yes, yes, we understand the how. It’s the _why_ that’s still up in the air.”

“He’s already got Sicheng wrapped around his finger,” Yangyang guesses. 

Ten’s grin widens and, at long last, he stands up straight and gives Yukhei some breathing room. “I wouldn’t have believed a word of that if I wasn’t standing right here looking at the evidence.”

Yukhei halfway spits, “Would love it if you two stopped talking about me like I’m not sitting here.”

Yangyang chortles and flips his tail. Then he approaches the desk. “Did we get utensils?” And the subject’s changed just like that.

“Inside,” Ten tells him and then slides the takeout plate closer to him.

Yangyang pops open the takeout plate’s lid, then he raises the whole thing and puts his face into the billowing steam. “Oh, you went all the way to the other side of town for this. Can tell by the sauce.”

Ten responds, “Anything for my beautiful boys.” He lifts the last two takeout plates out of the crate, kicks the plastic cube off to the side with a noisy clatter and then barges into Kun’s office without knocking or announcing himself. Only Ten can do that.

Yangyang sits his bony little ass on Yukhei’s desk, halfway on top of the materials he needs, tail raised high, and mutters, “Sorry I cockblocked you.”

That makes Yukhei choke on his eggroll. It takes seconds for him to recover. “What? When?”

Yangyang sits his takeout tray across his lap, snaps apart a pair of chopsticks and lifts a sticky chunk of sweet and sour chicken to his mouth. “With Sicheng. You could have had you a good fuck tonight if Sicheng didn’t think I had a claim on you.”

Yukhei’s face warms. All of this is news to him! In a higher octave, he repeats, “What?” Crumbs fly from his mouth.

Yangyang does not repeat himself. He simply asks, “You’ve got wax in your ears?”

Yukhei certainly is having trouble hearing. “Sicheng’s not interested in me,” Yukhei defends himself. “What alpha would be interested in _me_?” 

“Sicheng, apparently,” says Yangyang. 

That sounds a little improbable. Yukhei takes the last of his egg roll and just shoves it all in his mouth in one go. Muffled, he chokes out, “How do you figure?”

Yangyang shifts on top of the desk and stares at him like he’s grown a second head. “How long’s it been since you’ve been courted?”

Since college, Yukhei thinks. “A couple months,” he smooths it over.

If Yangyang senses the lie, he doesn’t expose it. He just uses his chopsticks to lift a bigger chunk of chicken to his mouth. “Prove to me that Sicheng didn’t try to court you. Think back. Did he present himself to you?”

Present himself? “He answered the door in his boxers. That surely doesn’t count.”

“It doesn’t. Think harder. Did he try to be a pretty little trophy for you? Tried to get you to choose his knot over all others? Did he beg on his knees for that hole of yours?”

Fuck! Did Yangyang have to be so forward about it? “No,” Yukhei says. But then the memory springs to mind immediately. When Sicheng had raised his arms above his head and flexed his pecs, his abs. When he’d flooded Yukhei’s senses with his pheromones. A flood Yukhei had written off because he’d assumed it was due to Sicheng’s near-nakedness. Yukhei looks up at Yangyang, mouth half open.

Yangyang sees the changed answer on Yukhei’s face. “Well? Did it work? Do you want him?”

Yukhei immediately recalls dragging his eyes up and down Sicheng’s body. Of reaching out and fearlessly placing his hand on Sicheng’s bare skin. Yukhei sits back in his chair, surprised at himself. “Yeah. I do.” He wants Sicheng _bad_. His cheeks flush. His tail goes rigid. Yukhei puts a hand over his mouth to hide his smile. “He got me good.”

⤰

When Yukhei gets to their shared apartment after daybreak, Renjun looms in the foyer like a ghost. 

His moan of a hello doesn’t sound too different from a “boo!”

Yukhei startles and whips around.

It doesn’t help that Renjun’s not much more than a pair of bluish-gray wolf ears poking out of a cocoon of white bed sheets.

Yukhei startles all over again as the front door noisily clicks shut behind him. “Christ, Renjun. You scared me. How long have you been standing there?”

“Barely a minute,” Renjun huffs. “Don’t look at me like that! I’m no creep. I glanced out the window and saw you crossing the street.” Renjun lunges for the tote bag Yukhei did his shopping with and rummages around in it to make sure Yukhei got everything. “Dammit. I should have told you to pick up some beef. I’m craving. We could have gone to the roof and used the grill.” Renjun’s ears perk up when he finds what he’s looking for. He grins. Pulls the bottle of ibuprofen out of the tote bag, wrestles with the cap until he gets it open, peels out the cotton and then pops two bluish-green pills on his tongue before he swallows them dry. Almost like an afterthought, Renjun slings an arm around Yukhei’s back in a half-hug. “How was work, dear?”

“Fine. Same old same old. Barely left my desk the whole night.”

“I’d kill for a desk job,” Renjun gripes, nuzzling against Yukhei’s side. “I’d maim for an office.”

“I don’t have an office,” Yukhei reminds him.

Renjun pushes his head against Yukhei’s shoulder. The movement brings wafts of his unique smell to Yukhei’s nose. 

It’s… _strong_ , to be absolutely kind about it. 

To be unkind about it, Renjun smells like something burning. Like something chemical. Like plastic melting. The scent stings the sinuses like rubbing alcohol. But if Yukhei breathes through his mouth, he’s alright.

“I’ve got some bad news,” Renjun grunts out. His swaddle of bed sheets falls off of his head and shoulders as he turns around and shuffles away. He moves stiffly, hunched over, and he wraps his tail around his leg like he’s been physically wounded.

“What is it,” Yukhei wonders. He kicks off his dress shoes and then squats down to pick up the sheets where they’ve fallen to the floor behind Renjun. “Do you need money?”

“It’s nothing that major,” Renjun calls over his shoulder. “Hell, maybe it _is_ that major.” He flops down onto the couch and only then does Yukhei realize that Renjun’s in just a tank top and white briefs. He’s shaved his legs and the smooth skin gleams beneath the lamplight. Renjun holds out his arms in Yukhei’s direction, makes grabby hands like he’s still a pup.

Yukhei sets his tote bag of supplies down on the dining room table and then crosses the room towards the couch, feeling severely overdressed for the moment in his work suit. He props a knee up on one of the couch cushions for balance and gets a good look at his friend.

Renjun’s done something impulsive again, Yukhei notices. He’s gone off to some salon last night, probably the one where Chenle works, to get all of his bright purple hair (another impulse) shaved down to the scalp. Now Yukhei can plainly see the place where his deep gray, fluffy ears protrude from his skull but the severe hairstyle (or lack thereof) doesn’t take away from Renjun’s handsomeness. 

When Renjun makes no move to spill the beans, Yukhei asks, “What’s the bad news?”

Renjun reaches up both hands, grabs Yukhei’s wrist and pulls him down onto the couch, half on top of him. He growls out in a surprisingly aggressive tone, “Jungwoo’s out of town.”

“Okay,” Yukhei responds. He rolls off of Renjun’s body, settles on the couch next to him and lets the younger omega tangle their legs together and curl into his chest. Yukhei drapes the blankets over top of their cuddle pile. The proximity reminds him of his college days, when he and his exchange student roommate Mark would skip classes for a week to sweat out their heats beneath a nest of blankets.

Sweating is an understatement.

Renjun’s body is hot like a furnace. Not only does he give off heat, it also feels like he gives off _moisture—_ not too different from a humidifier—and it’s only been seconds but Yukhei’s already sweating. “Doesn’t Jungwoo leave town all of the time?”

“Yeah, but… Don’t you get it?” Renjun grips a fistful of Yukhei’s shirt in his hand. “Did you forget what week it is already?” He presses close to Yukhei, ruts his hips against Yukhei’s stomach almost without thinking and moans softly from the contact. Yukhei has to clamp a hand down on his buddy's hip to still his thrusting. Renjun exhales shakily but manages to say, “If he’s out of town, he can’t knot either of us this week.”

Yukhei nods slowly in understanding. “I see.”

For nearly two years, they’ve had an odd thing going with Jungwoo from the corner unit at the end of the hall. Well, at first, Renjun had an odd thing going. Then, after a lot of talking, Yukhei also got involved in it once he moved in. The omegas don’t see him around the building much, which is oddly ideal, and the three of them only casually acknowledge each other in the rare moments they share an elevator ride—also ideal—but every six weeks, like clockwork, Renjun invites Jungwoo over so that the older wolf can fuck them both through their heats. It’s mutually beneficial. A shy alpha who can’t even talk to his workplace crush without stuttering gets to bed two hot omegas every other month while two omegas who can’t attract mates if their lives depended on it get guaranteed knots every heat. Jungwoo’s not all that good of a lay (he’s quite mediocre in bed, actually, with that lack of confidence of his slowing him down in every aspect of the phrase) but just like you can only press that sneaky reset button on the TV remote by using a pin or something similar to get down to it, an omega can only break their heat early by using an alpha’s knot.

“God. You always smell like alpha when you come back home,” Renjun chokes out. “It’s my— It’s my favorite thing. There’s one alpha’s scent you always bring home with you that always gets me going.” 

“I can’t imagine any of the alphas that I hang around smelling very nice,” Yukhei responds.

“Right here.” Renjun presses his nose to Yukhei’s forearm. “Who is this?”

Yukhei raises his arm and sniffs at his skin. He immediately catches the bloody/fruity tang of Yangyang. “I don’t know,” he easily lies. “I have quite a few coworkers.”

Renjun lets out a desperate moan. “Fuck. I’d do _anything_ for him, Yukhei. I'd go to fucking jail. I'd commit fucking murder.” His face is flushed completely pink. His eyes are slightly watery. Then he catches on to how badly he’s fiending already. He slides away from Yukhei’s solid frame, even though he whimpers like it pains him to do so. “God… We were talking about Jungwoo.” It takes him a moment, but he regains his composure and resumes their conversation. “I don’t think you get it, Yukhei. We don’t have an alpha around.” He leans towards Yukhei’s face to really sell the eye contact. “Shit’s gonna get messy without one this week. You know how you get, filthy bitch. You filled the tub when this happened last summer. Clogged the drain. Remember? The plumber almost walked out on us when we showed him the problem.” 

And Yukhei sighs because it’s an embarrassing anecdote he’s nearly forgotten about but now it’s back in the forefront of his memory. He’ll never live it down.

Renjun keeps going, “I’m gonna have to break out the toys.”

And Yukhei kind of hates those toys. 

Sure, the dildos get the job done if used _vigorously_ , but Yukhei’s pain tolerance is always put to the test when Renjun has to work the immovable silicone knot into him when it’s so much easier to let an alpha inflate inside of him.

“Now I understand,” Yukhei mumbles. The gravity of the situation finally settles over him.

“Fuck Jungwoo for having a life and being busy.” Renjun bares his teeth. 

“What about our other neighbor?”

Renjun asks, eyebrows raised sky high. “Guanheng? Pssh. He still pinches his nose when he smells me coming down the hall. He’ll probably knot you but I doubt he’ll put his dick in me.” Renjun rolls away. Just a little bit, given how narrow the couch is. “And as fucked up as it sounds, I’ve gotten used to us being together like that. I don’t want to invite some random alpha here to fuck me unless you’re here too. You know… for safety.”

“What about that Jeno guy? The one from overseas?”

“I haven’t called him up for a knot in over a year,” Renjun recalls. “Remember what happened the last time? I kinda scribbled him off the list when Donghyuck nearly bit my ear off for just _suggesting_ Jeno knot me.” Renjun laughs at himself. “I guess that’s what I get for trying to proposition a mated man.”

“To be fair, they’d only been mated a handful of weeks at the time. The possessiveness was still strong. Perhaps it’ll be easier to ask now.”

Renjun lets out a high-pitched sigh. “No. No more mated men.”

Fair. “Is there anyone else who can knot us,” Yukhei questions.

Renjun bites his bottom lip as he thinks. “Hmmm. I’m coming up short. Unlike you, I don’t casually hang out with alphas in my spare time.” 

“Well,” Yukhei mumbles, “I could ask my—” But he stops himself. Finishing the sentence feels like he’d be calling death upon his head. Just the thought of Yangyang fucking him—the thought of catching a nose full of that rank, bloody scent while trying to work himself up to an orgasm—puts a severe enough chill through him that he wouldn’t be surprised if it staves off his heat. What about Ten? Yukhei doesn’t want to make assumptions but Ten seems like the type who would sell a knot or two without batting an eyelash. Fuck. Yukhei doesn’t even want to _consider_ asking Kun. “There’s gotta be an alpha we can ask,” he squeaks out. “A strong one. Full of vitality.” One who can actually handle two omegas at once, the qualification goes unsaid.

“I don’t have any other alphas to ask. They don’t exactly line up in front of me. I fucking reek. My only friend is Chenle at the salon.”

“You don’t reek,” Yukhei corrects him. He wipes his large hand across Renjun’s sweaty forehead. “You’re special.”

“You’re special, too,” chides Renjun. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be in this shit together.”

And that’s a dark spiral of thoughts Yukhei doesn’t want to go down. That’s trauma from his childhood that he still clearly carries like Louis Vuitton baggage behind him. He considers himself grown but there are still days where he wishes he smelled _bad_ as opposed to not smelling like much of anything at all. At least then, he’d get a reaction out of alphas. He’d rather they pinch their noses in disgust then not notice him at all.

“Do you wanna fuck me,” Renjun boldly asks, snapping Yukhei out of his reverie. When Yukhei looks at him, Renjun’s practically glowing from the onset of his heat. His skin is flushed. His fur bristles. There’s just enough glassiness to his stare that Yukhei knows Renjun’s close to frenzy. That he’s just babbling. Saying the first thing on his mind. Saying anything that will get a dick in him. 

Fortunately, Yukhei is several hours from the onset of his own heat. Perhaps even one more day away. He can tell by how calm and relaxed he is even with Renjun trembling in his arms. “I could… But that wouldn’t do anything for either of us and you know it,” he states. He gently pries Renjun’s hands off of him. “At least not during the first couple of days.” When Renjun pouts at him, Yukhei makes a deal. “If I can’t find us an alpha by, say, Saturday, then we’ll fuck each other through it.”

Renjun answers with a vigorous nod of his head. The idea isn't much but it still sets him off. He flattens his ears to the top of his head and Yukhei can feel and _smell_ when Renjun starts leaking that first little bit of slick. Renjun sucks in a breath like he’s been swimming and has only just now come up for air. He tosses the bed sheets off of them, crawls over Yukhei and stiffly makes his way towards the hallway bathroom. “You’ve got two days, Yukhei,” he croaks out before he dashes up the hall.

⤰

The night (well, it’s technically morning) goes well. For Yukhei, at least. 

Yukhei showers and changes clothes.

Renjun’s heat makes him whiny and cranky and touch-starved and he can’t even finish making himself breakfast so Yukhei takes over. The older omega’s been taking care of him for a while so he’s learned to be patient. He puts Renjun on the couch beneath clean sheets, keeps him fed and hydrated and entertained. And when Renjun gets too wet to be on any furniture, they make a nest of pillows and blankets on their bedroom floor, get all cuddly beneath the stretch of sunlight pouring in through the window, and have a rather deep conversation before Yukhei falls asleep.

Yukhei has a dream about walking down a beautiful stone path lined with Japanese cherry blossoms and, for some odd reason, he wakes up with the front of his underwear wet and sticky with cum. 

He immediately starts thinking about knots. And not even in a horny way. Just in a _knot + my ass = no more fever_ kind of way.

Math has always been his best subject.

It’s halfway through the afternoon when Yukhei begins to feel the sweats that come with his heat dampen his neck and chest.

Renjun gets first dibs on the shower, though, and isn’t subtle at all about going into the bathroom with one of his dildos in his hand.

Yukhei makes breakfast (lunch? dinner?) and while the coffee brews and bubbles in the pot, he at least _attempts_ to make good on his find-us-some-dick-in-two-days promise.

It’s not that there’s any shortage of alphas in the city, and their knots are truly a dime a dozen, but Yukhei has to keep in mind how precarious their situation is. Alphas get possessive when they are horny. And such behavior isn’t fun or fair when both Yukhei _and_ Renjun need satisfaction. And it isn’t until Yukhei thinks about it that he realizes how wonderfully the two of them have lucked out with a timid service top like Jungwoo. They can push him around, pass him back and forth, wring him dry and then send him back down the hall afterward with no fear of him attempting to sneak in a mating bite to fuck everything up.

They are never gonna find another alpha like that.

But he’s got to _try_.

So Yukhei calls Xiaojun, who hasn’t hate-fucked him through a heat since college, but the wolf must have changed his number because some old lady who is convinced he’s a telemarketer answers. And then _calls him back_ when he hangs up on her.

Yukhei tries to track down Xiaojun on social media. Yukhei’s usually good at this sort of thing, as he’s handled the social media accounts of the last few (legitimate) companies he’s worked for, but Xiaojun’s never been big on having SNS accounts to begin with so uncovering his digital footprints is a job in and of itself. 

Xiaojun only has 18 years-old tweets on Twitter and nearly all of them are some variation of ‘I have twitter now’ to all of their classmates. He hasn’t updated Facebook in nearly a year—the last post being an announcement of his own birthday—and Yukhei isn’t even sure if the artistically blurry, faceless photos and motivational quotes on djxiao’s Instagram even belongs to the man Yukhei knows and he definitely doesn’t want to send some stranger on the internet a ‘knot me?’ in a dm. 

By sheer luck, he chances upon Mark’s Instagram and immediately gives the guy a follow before he scrolls through a few months worth of photos. He’s pleasantly surprised by how much Mark’s changed since college. He’s letting his hair grow out. He’s dying it bright colors. He’s wearing clothes that actually fit him. He’s even dating some tall, devilishly handsome man named Kai.

Fuck.

This is not as easy as Yukhei thought it would be.

Asking a close friend or one of his professional networking associates for a knot would cross boundaries. Most of his old classmates have moved across the country, have successfully started their dream careers, have gotten mated, have gotten pregnant or even divorced!

Yukhei thinks back on the alphas he knows from the last job he had. That, too, gives him a dead end because he knows for a fact Yuta went back to Japan when the company tanked and he also knows that Jaehyun’s been mated for ages now. Both aren’t ideal situations for a ‘knot me?’ text unless Yuta can catch an overseas flight, like, _tonight_ … or if Jaehyun’s mate is okay with him knotting not one but _two_ other omegas. And that’s a lot to ask someone to be alright with so quickly.

Yukhei lets the dilemma plague his mind while he finishes up chores around the apartment and even late into that evening when he goes to work.

Now he’s looking at all of the alphas in the office with brand new eyes. Now he’s taking every opportunity he can to steal a sniff as he makes his way across the room to his desk. 

Things don’t get weird until Ten catches on to what he’s doing, boxes him in against one of the walls and asks, rather abruptly, “You trying to fuck?”

And the low growl of his voice legitimately leaves Yukhei shaking and about to fucking _beg_ at just the prospect, but perhaps he shouldn’t show such vulnerability in front of people he needs to see five nights a week. “I…” It’s all he can manage.

Ten, however, is down for anything, it seems. “I could have plugged and filled you by now if you’d just asked me first instead of spending an hour sniffing around.”

To which Yukhei goes, “I’m not trying to fuck anybody I work with.”

Then Ten gestures over his shoulder towards the wolf Yukhei had _just_ gotten caught sniffing.

Dejectedly, Yukhei lowers his head.

Ten’s about to say something even more inappropriate than what he’s already declared, but then Ten wrinkles his nose. He gags. Gasps. Swallows down a choked gulp of air and backs away, fanning his hand in front of his face. “God, you reek. Did you fucking douse yourself in gasoline or something?” 

“No,” Yukhei groans. At least Ten’s reaction has pulled him out of his desperation. Brought him back to the reality of the crowded room.

Ten takes two fingers and inelegantly plugs them up his own nostrils. “You smell like a chemical spill. God. You smell like gas. Like…”

“You don’t need to be specific,” Yukhei sighs. He knows for a fact that Renjun’s scent clings to him, even after the shower he took. 

“I mean,” Ten backpedals, “you don’t reek. I mean, it’s not completely and totally awful. You, well… You smell… You smell like you’ve… You smell very—”

“Good,” Yangyang fills in. Nothing but bass.

Yukhei can’t even recall when Yangyang stepped out of Kun’s office, but now the younger wolf is pressed up against Yukhei’s side and his slender fingers are, rather lovingly, clamped around the base of Yukhei’s throat. Yangyang presses his nose to the crook of Yukhei’s neck, let’s out an aroused half-bark that gets nearly every other alpha in the room swiveling their head or their ears in their direction.

Yukhei, to his credit, doesn’t flinch. He stands tall and still, unafraid, and lets himself be scented.

Yangyang licks his lips. “You smell like heaven.” 

Ten gives the wolf a strained, uncomfortable smile. “Are you _serious_?”

“Yes,” Yangyang howls. Then he manages to put a lid on his emotions. On his hormones. He snaps out of it, pulls his hand off of Yukhei’s neck and looks the omega in the eye. “I can tell that’s not your own scent. It doesn’t cling to you like it should. It doesn’t mix with you like it should. But it’s so _good_.” 

Ten tries to give Yangyang the benefit of the doubt. He unplugs his nose to risk an additional sniff, as if there’s some earthy note he may have missed the first time but, no, what he smells still makes him recoil like he’s bitten something sour. “I’m going to go,” he states. Neither of them attempt to stop him. Ten turns away, shouts that he’s “going downstairs for a drink” and disappears out the office door.

With him gone, Yukhei can put all of his attention on Yangyang. On this alpha who smells like carnage but smiles so cheerily.

“You’re right. It’s not my scent. It’s my friend’s,” Yukhei says in a measured, careful tone.

Yangyang’s eyes catch the light and flash a little gold. Then Yukhei’s slapped in the face with a fresh wave of Yangyang’s blood-dark scent. Yangyang’s clearly still trying to hold himself back. He snaps his mouth shut before drool escapes past his lips. He puts a hand over his nose but at least it’s not in disgust. “Who's your friend and how soon can I meet them?”

Seconds too late, it dawns on Yukhei that Yangyang is being _serious_. Genuine. He’s not playing around. He isn’t turning this into some cruel joke. (Renjun’s been the butt of many of those before.) Yangyang is actually attracted to Renjun’s burning, chemical scent. That seems to be a fact. Then again, a man who smells like blood clearly can’t find pleasures in the same scents everyone else does. Yukhei still has his reservations. He says, “I’ll have to call him and send him a photo of you. We’ll have to talk it through. We’ll both need to approve of you.” And he hasn’t even brought up the fact that they are a two-for-one special. That they are both in heat and that they both need knotting. But Yukhei’s still not too keen on the idea of sitting on Yangyang’s knot, even if he’s slowly coming to terms with the fact that Yangyang may not be as awful and dangerous as his scent makes him seem.

But, gosh, it’s such a strong scent. Like a gaping wound stuffed full of poached fruit.

Yukhei raises his arm up and presses his face into the crook of his elbow to dilute Yangyang’s scent. “If you give me your number, I can put you two in contact.”

“Does he have Instagram? I can message him myself,” Yangyang states.

Yukhei breathes in to speak but pauses. There is a moment where he only smells the freshly laundered cotton of his dress shirt sleeve. Where he only smells Renjun’s lingering, chemical scent. Where he only smells the vanilla body wash on his skin.

But then—briefly—he catches a whiff of something light and floral. Evanescent and brilliant.

Cherry blossoms.

Sicheng.

Somehow, even after several showers, even after cuddling with Renjun, Yukhei’s skin still smells—however faintly—like Sicheng.

And his body’s reaction to that is so instant that he cannot control it.

Something deep in Yukhei’s gut tightens and twists. He has to clench every muscle in his body to hold himself together.

Yangyang’s caught off guard. That’s how unprecedented it is. Someone like Yangyang is caught _by surprise_. His ears twist forward. His tail wags with curiosity. He lowers his hand. He doesn’t even need to lean in before he sniffs the air. “I can…” His eyes go wide with shock. “I can smell you,” he says gently, as if speaking too loud will chase the scent away.

“Sorry,” Yukhei grunts. It feels like he’s about to fall apart.

“No. Don’t apologize,” Yangyang starts. “It’s—”

“I’m sorry.” Yukhei drops his arm from in front of his face to remove Sicheng’s scent from his sinuses. Unfortunately, the fire won’t leave his belly and he leans back against the wall just to keep his knees from buckling underneath him. “I know I just got here but… Can I go?” Yukhei asks. 

He should get home before he irreparably stains his dress pants. He needs to run a bubble bath and sit in the tub with a glass of wine while the first hours of his heat make his body go supernova.

Yangyang giggles at this unorthodox predicament but at least he takes several steps back to give Yukhei space. “I’m not the one you need to ask permission from.”

And Yukhei doesn’t even think it through. He doesn’t consider the risks. He just pushes himself off of the wall, grabs the handle to the big boss’s door and throws it open like he’s gone mad.

For several seconds, Kun does not look up from the letter he’s writing. Then his ears swivel. He loudly sniffs the air and catches neither Ten nor Yangyang’s scent. He looks up. “Yukhei,” he states the name in a cold, diamond-hard voice. Like a warning. Like a red flag. Like Yukhei’s about to get his throat clawed out.

Yukhei blurts out, “Can I take a half day?” Is the mob even something you can schedule time off for? Does the Triad even have vacation days? “I just— I can’t be here right now. Not tonight.”

Kun sits up straight in his chair. He must finally smell what’s happening. His tail stiffens. He digs his fingernails into the edge of his desk. “Go, Yukhei.” Then, with a bit more bass in his voice, he repeats, “Go!”

Yukhei wastes no time retreating from the office. He practically sprints across the room, ignores the sniffs and stares of the other alphas, shoves open the door and makes his way to the stairs. The trip to the ground level is hazy at the edges. He moves but does not remember moving. He blinks, breathes, and then he’s suddenly outdoors, staring up at the light-polluted sky. 

He has to get home. 

Yukhei gets a full-body shiver and immediately can tell that his underwear is damp. 

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! 

The first day or so of his heat is usually exceptionally dry but one whiff of Sicheng has ticked him forward several notches in his cycle. 

And isn’t that embarrassing? Isn’t such a thing what teenagers do? Goddamn. He hasn’t had a leak like this happen to him in years. Not since the first time he caught Xiaojun’s scent freshman year of college. 

He’ll just go home, he thinks. Get some snacks. Preferably something really salty. He’ll buy a few bottles of Gatorade for the rehydration. He’ll do a few dozen Sudoku puzzles. Sit in the tub. And if the hot water of the bath doesn’t soothe the ache in him, because he knows it won’t now that his heat’s been properly triggered, he and Renjun can break out the box of toys.

God. He hates having to get a knot just shoved straight in but he’ll need it on a night like this.

He and Renjun can spread out a few blankets. Get comfy on the living room floor. Take turns with the toys while a nature documentary plays on the big screen. Something with penguins. Yeah. Everybody likes penguins.

That sounds like a spectacular idea, actually. 

And he’s so caught up in messaging Renjun and explaining the details for this little party for two of theirs that he doesn’t notice he’s gotten on the wrong subway until he’s stashed his phone in his pocket, looked up and realized that he’s standing in front of Sicheng’s apartment building.

⤰

Yukhei almost talks himself out of it.

This is a bad idea, he thinks. It’ll be a mistake.

He should run, he tells himself. He should ignore this urge. He should tamp it down and lock it away. Fight it. Resist it. Give himself cramps like Renjun does. 

He’s only known Sicheng a handful of minutes! How can he possibly ask the wolf to fuck him through this heat? 

He nearly succeeds in turning around. 

He nearly succeeds in walking away and getting on a train back home.

But his body is simple. Weak. His brain regresses to base carnality. Generations of wolfish instinct burns through his veins. In his blood. Evolution demands he fuck and breed and repopulate the hybrid species. He must keep the pack strong in numbers. His biology demands that of him. And before he knows it, he’s knocking on Sicheng’s door. Banging on it like he’s trying to break it down. He’s so thirsty, so needy, that he nearly rears back and kicks a hole straight through the door, but—

“Who is it?” Sicheng’s voice comes from the other side of the wood. Melodic and low.

There’s a lengthy silence. Neither of them move or speak. 

They can’t even see each other but they recognize one another.

Yukhei can _smell_ Sicheng on the other side of the door. Close but not close enough. But just before Yukhei raises a fist and knocks again, the door rattles and shakes as the locks are undone, then it swings open with a squeal.

Just like the other night, Sicheng’s hand reaches out of the gloom of the dimly-lit apartment, grips Yukhei’s wrist tight and drags him inside.

Yukhei gets a nose full of Sicheng’s scent—practically dives head first into it—and all but crumples to the floor. His hands scramble blindly for his own belt buckle. He’ll just yank down his pants to make it easier for Sicheng to get to him. He’ll just—

The door slams shut. Sicheng yanks Yukhei’s hands away from his pants, hoists him back up to his feet, shoves him to the wall.

Such a display of force makes Yukhei whine. Not because he’s wounded but because he is _impressed_. Excited. Aroused.

They stare at each other.

But not for long. Yukhei is a weak, desperate man.

All he sees is Sicheng. All he wants is Sicheng.

The wolf’s scent simply _does something_ to Yukhei. It coats his sinuses. Lingers in his brain. Unlocks feelings he’s never thought he'd ever have. 

The way Sicheng is standing… The way the fabric of his slacks stretches over his thighs. He’s like a meal. A buffet. And Yukhei wants to gorge himself. Eat his fill. Be stuffed.

_Look at him_ , he thinks. _He’s so fucking hot. Look at his hands! They are so wonderfully, beautifully veiny and his fingers are so pretty and slender and—look! Look at how pink they get at the tips. Is his dick like that too? Is it pretty and pink at the tip? He’s so tall and his waist is so narrow that I could probably fit both my hands around it. His skin is so dewy and supple and soft,_ he thinks. _I just want to claw at it, bite at it. Mark it. I’ll do anything,_ he thinks. _I’ll even suck on his toes if that’s what he wants from me._

A gravelly moan slips out from between Yukhei’s teeth. He’s leaking so bad. The crotch of his pants is visibly soaked. He needs Sicheng to fucking pin him to the floor. Fucking take him. Fucking knot him like a bitch. Yukhei lunges forward. He attempts to kiss Sicheng’s pretty, pink lips but Sicheng shoves him back.

“What is the meaning of this,” Sicheng asks with wicked, inhuman calm. He looks so different when he’s actually got clothes on. A dress shirt, tie and slacks not all too different from Yukhei’s own. Sicheng’s hair is gelled and styled to perfection like he’s just come from somewhere important. The look exposes his forehead. That and the glasses that sit on his nose make him look rather studious. 

Yukhei willingly believes that the wolf may actually be a licensed, practicing doctor. A _surgeon_.

His thoughts only spiral further out of control.

_Look at him look at him look at him,_ he thinks. _He’s so much stronger than he looks. He barely has to struggle to hold me back. Look at him look at him. I’d do anything for him. He’s so hot. What does he look like naked? Are his knees pretty? Because his wrists are pretty. His neck is pretty. The rest of him has to be just as pretty. What’s his dick like? Is it long and skinny and veiny? Is it short and fat and thick? Is it small and cute? Does it curve to the left or hook to the right? How thick around does his knot get? When he cums, does he dribble like cream or does he spray like a shaken-up soda can?_

“Yukhei,” Sicheng says quietly but firmly.

The sound of his name snaps some sense into him. Not much but a little. Yukhei blinks. “I need you, Sicheng,” he growls out through gritted teeth. His canines dig into his bottom lip and threaten to break skin. “I need your fucking knot. I want you so bad. I love you.”

“Shut up,” Sicheng snaps. He drops his hands from Yukhei’s shoulders and steps back. Yukhei has just enough good sense left in him to pick up on the fact that Sicheng is _angry_. His hackles are raised. His tail bristles. He clenches and unclenches his fists. “You don’t mean any of that, Yukhei. That’s your heat talking.”

Yukhei squeezes his eyes shut. He feels so twisted up inside. He’s so horny that he’s angry about it. His dick strains against the confines of his khakis and he can feel the tickling way his slick trickles down his thigh. When he opens his eyes, tiny little stars dance across his vision. “I mean it,” he pleads. “I really mean it. I’ve been thinking about it all day. Thinking about your knot.” And that’s not even true! Sicheng hasn’t even been an option but for an hour or so. And Yukhei kind of hates that he can tell that he’s just babbling. He can tell that he’s just saying words. His brain is mush, hard-wired to send him on the straightest, shortest path to an alpha’s knot. “I love—”

“Shut up,” Sicheng howls. “Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I’m some brainless alpha begging to get their dick wet?”

And Yukhei’s so far gone that he immediately says, “Yes.”

Sicheng narrows his eyes.

His scent floods Yukhei’s nose. Half of Yukhei’s brain recognizes the display as dominance. The other half makes him shudder in violent pleasure and Yukhei presses a palm to his crotch because he fears he’s cum just from that.

Sicheng’s so wonderful. His teeth are kinda pretty. His ears are kind of cute. Yukhei briefly wonders what their pups will look like. Will all of them have red-furred ears like Sicheng? Or will one inherit Yukhei's starlight-white fur?

Yukhei takes a step forward. He wants to cup Sicheng’s jaw in his hands. He wants to pull Sicheng’s face to the crook of his neck and coax a bite out of him. 

He wants to _belong_ to Sicheng.

He wants to be mated.

Yukhei whimpers at just the thought. He puts a hand on Sicheng’s neck and tries to undo the buttons on the wolf’s shirt.

He wants to feel Sicheng’s claws in his skin. He wants to feel Sicheng’s knot plugging him up tight so that not a drop of cum spills out. He wants to feel Sicheng all the way up in his belly.

Sicheng says, “Sit.”

The order triggers something deep, deep inside him and makes Yukhei immediately flop to the floor like he’s lost all feeling in his legs.

For the first time since they met, Yukhei feels _small_ in front of Sicheng and he slides away from the wolf until his back is pressed up tight to the wall of the foyer.

Sicheng kneels in front of him. His pretty eyes are narrowed. His pretty eyebrows are furrowed. His pretty lips are twisted down into a scowl.

Yukhei viscerally understands that he has disappointed his alpha (Shit. No. Not _his_ alpha . _An_ alpha. Sicheng!) and his ears flatten to the top of his skull. He lowers his gaze, twists his head to expose his neck in submission.

But no punishing bite comes.

Sicheng displays no aggression beyond his own pissed-off expression. “Yukhei,” he begins, “I’ll happily fuck you but not when your heat’s put you into a frenzy.”

Yukhei’s tail thumps against the floor rhythmically. Sicheng wants to fuck him? Sicheng wants to _fuck_ him? “Please do,” he squeaks out. “I’m begging you.”

That doesn’t please Sicheng one bit. He folds his arms across his chest, which forces his shirt to stretch around the bulge of his biceps. 

Yukhei salivates.

“I’ll fuck you through your heat, but only if your head is clear. Only if you’re calm.”

“I am calm,” says Yukhei.

Sicheng’s anger eases up microscopically. “You are only calm because I told you to be.”

And only then does Yukhei really understand how deep in this shit he’s gotten. Only then does he _get it_. “Oh my God,” he cries out. “I’m so sorry. Holy fuck. I’m so sorry, Sicheng.” And he can’t figure out why his eyes are stinging. He wipes the heel of his palm across one eye and then the other, clearing away those pesky tears. “I don’t know what came over me. This is so fucking embarrassing.”

To his credit, Sicheng only sits there and lets him ramble on and on. 

“You know… I don’t even remember taking the train to your place,” Yukhei continues. “I barely remember taking the elevator up to your floor. My head’s so fucking foggy.”

“Now do you understand?” Sicheng asks. “You only want me because you’re in heat.”

And Yukhei almost takes offense to that. “I want you because you’re you.”

But Sicheng doesn’t seem moved at all by the confession. “Tell me that when your heat has passed and maybe I’ll believe you.”

Yukhei tries a different route. “You presented yourself to me first. Showed yourself off like you wanted to be a trophy on my mantle.”

That, at least, gets a chuckle out of Sicheng. His face softens. His overpowering scent in the room lessens and lessens until Yukhei feels like he can catch his first deep breath in ages.

“Sit tight,” Sicheng states. “I’ll fetch you a set of dry clothes you can change into. Just don’t do anything creepy like smell my clothes. At least not while I’m looking.”

Yukhei snorts. “I’m not _that_ bad off.” 

Sicheng snorts back a laugh and disappears up the hall.

Their time apart, at least, gives Yukhei the minutes he needs to calm down. 

His heart stops pounding in his chest. The hazy, rim light edges of his vision comes back into sharp clarity. The twisting and tightening in his gut smooths over.

His heat still has a hell-hot fire blazing through his system but at least it is a more manageable and controlled bonfire as opposed to a raging, chaotic forest fire. When Sicheng comes back up the hall with dark-colored slacks, brightly patterned underwear and a simple white dress shirt slung over his arm, Yukhei can look up and make direct eye contact with him without drooling. 

Sicheng helps him to his feet and commands him to strip, but there is nothing sexual about it.

And, really, Yukhei should be a touch more embarrassed about having an alpha help him out of his slick-soppy clothes but circumstances are rather dire so he allows himself to stand there and be dressed.

“Don’t do anything weird,” Yukhei gets him back, “and sniff those.” He points at the wet clothes Sicheng has balled up in his hands. 

“Oh, these are going straight down the garbage chute,” Sicheng says with so blank a face that he can only be telling the truth.

Yukhei decides not to take offense.

“Go home, Yukhei,” Sicheng says. “You’re in no position to demand a knot.” He opens the apartment door and guides Yukhei out into the hall. “Wait a day. Or two. Then call me.”

That gets Yukhei’s tail wagging. He had been under the incorrect assumption that this was an outright rejection. This is merely a _delay_. Yukhei’s still getting laid. Something clicks in his head, though, and he’s about to tell him that he doesn’t know Sicheng’s number, but—

“Ask Yangyang for my info,” Sicheng tells him.

Then the door clicks shut in Yukhei’s face.

⤰

Renjun’s not at all surprised to see Yukhei come stumbling back into the apartment not even three hours after he’s left it. Hell, he doesn’t even ask why Yukhei’s in a different set of slightly ill-fitting clothes. In fact, Renjun’s still on the couch in front of the TV where Yukhei left him, cocooned in blankets. The younger omega looks away from his romantic melodrama long enough to spot Yukhei’s sourpuss face then rolls his eyes. “Didn’t I tell you we were synced up? Didn’t I tell you to stay home tonight? But nooooo. You think you’re soooooo tough.”

“Love you too,” Yukhei tells him. 

“Why are you so against asking for paid time off? You’ve been like this since the start. Most jobs will approve it. It’s for medical reasons, after all.”

Yukhei decides not to bring up that his current job doesn’t even have an HR department. Let alone any proper, documented way to request PTO. He kicks off his shoes and huffs out, “It’s complicated.” 

“Complicated, my ass,” Renjun gripes.

Yukhei exhales. Now that he’s home, surrounded by familiar smells, it feels like the fog of his heat has completely left his mind for the first time since it overwhelmed him back at the office. It feels kind of good to have a clear head. To be able to _think_. Yukhei goes to the kitchen, swings open the freezer door and pulls out the carton of ice cream Renjun bought not even a week ago. “I’m going to go soak in the tub,” he announces. Then he shakes the carton in Renjun’s direction. “And I’m finishing this whole thing.”

Renjun shrugs. “At least you’ve still got normal tastes. Do you know how badly this heat has fucked up my palate? I’m glad you weren’t here half an hour ago. I was eating taco seasoning straight out of the packet. I only just got finished brushing my teeth again.”

Yukhei chuckles but hardly slows on his journey down the hall and to the bathroom.

He’s managed his heat before. He can do it again. He has to.

As he strips out of Sicheng’s clothes, he tosses them down the hallway out of sight so that a stray whiff of the alpha’s scent won’t royally fuck him up again. He sits his phone on the counter next to the sink and realizes that the only way he’s getting a knot this week is to overcome his slightly misplaced fear of Yangyang and just ask him for Sicheng’s number. Naked, Yukhei stares at himself in the mirror. He admires the cut of his muscles and the dark ink of his tattoos. Then he stares at his weirdly white hair and remembers how Sicheng called it beautiful. Yukhei tries not to grin as he steps away from the glass. 

How can he be getting gushy and sentimental and emotionally attached already? 

Though, if Yangyang is right, Sicheng’s already begun the courting process. Perhaps it’s only natural that he is all Yukhei can think about. 

He runs a hot bath, drops in more bubble bath than absolutely necessary and has just got himself settled in the bathtub when Renjun opens the bathroom door, two metal spoons in his hand.

Renjun says, “Figured you’d need one of these.”

It’s not even worth the effort to feel shame. 

“Didn’t I say you’d forget your head if it weren’t for me,” Renjun nags.

Yukhei just sits the carton on the edge of the tub and pops off the lid. 

Renjun kneels next to the tub and hands him a spoon. They both dig in. It’s some kind of cookie-dough flavor with soft little balls of chocolate chips. Frankly, it’s a pile of sugar that shocks Yukhei’s system but in the best possible way. The scalding heat of the bath water and the freezing chill of the ice cream meet on either side of his skin and he delightfully moans as he swallows another spoonful.

Here comes the hard part.

“I may have found you an alpha,” Yukhei states.

Renjun perks up immediately. “Really? Who?”

“Hand me my phone.” Yukhei points to the sink counter.

It would be easier to stand and grab it but Renjun bends halfway backward and contorts his torso to reach for it, taking several seconds longer than it would if he were a bit more normal. At long last, he gets his hands on the device, leans back forward and holds it out to Yukhei. 

Yukhei shakes his left hand dry, grabs his phone and swipes in his password. He opens Insta and is thankful that his memory is pretty solid and that he can easily recall Yangyang’s username from those brief seconds of watching him swipe through stories and profiles the other evening. What surprises Yukhei the most is that Yangyang is already following him. For how long is hard to say, but Yukhei blesses him with a follow back before handing his phone to Renjun.

“That’s the one who you said smells good,” Yukhei says quietly, like he’s still unsure this will work. 

Both Yangyang and Renjun have strong, polarizing smells that are easy to hate. It seems almost too easy that they would immediately fall for each other’s scents, but— “Oh, he’s cute!” Renjun squeaks. “Look at his eyes! Look at his smile! He’s so _soft_ , Yukhei.”

And soft isn’t what Yukhei would call him but maybe Yukhei is being just like everyone else and judging someone by their scent. A bit ironic, considering how many opportunities he’s missed out on because of his own light scent. Yukhei smiles, “He is, isn’t he?” He doesn’t want to ruin this so he goes slow. “He caught your scent on me earlier tonight.”

“Did he say I reek?”

“No. He said you smell nice. In fact, he was the one who offered. It’s… It’s up to you if you want to meet him.”

Renjun rapidly scrolls through Yangyang’s posts, grinning all the while. “How do you know him? What does he do for a living?”

Yukhei easily evades the question. “He's my coworker. He’s... in sales.”

“We should call him up tonight,” Renjun suggests.

“I haven’t taken my medication. Maybe we can schedule something in a day or so?”

“I work from home so I’m free whenever. Just message him and tell him to come over when he can.”

Now they are getting into murky, dangerous waters. Yukhei keeps his voice light when he says, “Actually, I was thinking you should message him. He wants _you_ , after all.”

It takes Renjun a couple of seconds to process that. And when he does, he sets down Yukhei’s phone and looks his fellow omega in the eye. “What are you talking about, Yukhei? You make it sound like he’s gonna knot me but not you.”

“He isn’t,” Yukhei states. He scoops up more ice cream with his spoon and swallows it down. The silence gets awkward. He looks up and sees Renjun’s frowning face. “We can’t do this forever, Renjun. We can’t keep sharing knots forever. We can’t keep sharing food forever.” And here’s the big bomb. So big that he has to stare down at the sweetly-scented bubbles of his bath to say it. “We can’t keep sharing an apartment forever.” 

He expects Renjun to get emotional. To get angry. To get jealous.

Surprisingly, Renjun stays quiet as he swallows down a spoonful of ice cream. When he does speak, his tone is even. Like he’s not at all surprised by this. “Well, I’m gonna assume that you’ve already got your own place lined up… That you’ve already got your own alpha lined up…” 

Yukhei looks up at him. “I’m making moves,” he states. He’s got Sicheng, he hopes. He’s got that fancy new construction, he hopes. He’s got a ludicrous but lucrative source of steady income, he hopes.

Renjun scoops up more ice cream and takes his sweet time spooning it into his mouth and swallowing it. “Can we at least meet them together? You know I don’t like meeting with alphas alone.”

“Of course we can,” Yukhei tells him. “Let’s set something up for Monday.”

⤰

Monday rolls around. Both faster and slower than Yukhei anticipates. Faster, because Yangyang wasn’t weird about this at all on Sunday. Slower, because Yukhei has to admit that he’s been buzzing with excitement since they set things up and he’s hardly slept at all.

Meeting at the apartment felt a little raw, a little _wrong_ , the omegas agreed. Yes, they were trying to get knotted, like any omega would during these trying economic times… but they were also trying to get knotted but maybe go out for dinner afterward. 

The difference is all in the presentation. So meeting outside of the apartment is what they do.

The neutral place they chose to meet the alphas is a coffee shop a few blocks north of downtown. Neither in Doyoung’s territory nor on Kun’s turf, Yukhei made doubly sure. The time? Around 10 in the morning so the 9-to-5ers have already come through but it’s still a bit early to worry about the lunch rush. Yukhei claims a table next to the window while Renjun orders them coffee and donuts.

“You look nice,” Yukhei starts.

Because Sicheng _does_ look nice. “Thanks,” he mumbles. His face goes pink with uncharacteristic bashfulness.

No suit and tie, like Yukhei expects, but a big, cozy-looking sweater that by some trick of fate is striped in the same shade of baby blue as Yukhei’s short-sleeved shirt like they planned this. (They didn't.) 

“Y-you look nice,” Sicheng says back.

Yukhei knows it’s the simplest, bare minimum thing but it still gets a giggle out of him. “Thank you.”

“What about me,” Yangyang demands.

Yukhei spares him a glance. “You look like you.” Because Yangyang’s opted for an all-black punk rock outfit with heavy, smudged eyeliner and a ridiculous number of spiked bracelets like Hot Topic had an accessories sale.

“Sweet,” Yangyang takes the compliment(?) in stride. “And your friend looks like a snack.”

“I better,” Renjun snaps as he sits down next to Yukhei. “I spent fifteen minutes on my bangs.”

The joke is that he has no bangs. He has no hair.

Yangyang lays it on thick. “Your hard work paid off.”

Renjun rolls his eyes but it seems to be with some semblance of fondness as opposed to any real irritation.

Perhaps this will go a lot more smoothly than Yukhei planned. He relaxes in his seat and shifts his foot only for Sicheng to move ever so slightly. Only then does Yukhei realize that the solidness he’s been propping his foot against this entire time was Sicheng’s ankle and not the leg of the table as he’s assumed.

Yes. Everything’s going well. 

“We’ve got a lot to talk about, don’t we,” Yukhei states. He takes a sip of his coffee. “Let’s start at the beginning.”


End file.
